Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

"The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.

buildcontext.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 27 posts

Re: "The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.

#11

Post by anorwell »

The tone of this article bothers me. There are some smart people working at Microsoft. The level of discussion is higher than "Hey, google made a thing, we need the same thing."

Like the article points out, Microsoft has no shortage of utterances due to their acquisition of Tellme. Why, then, do they need to mine utterances with Bing 411? (Assuming they don't--I'm sure they do.) Bing 411 is a genuinely useful service that adds value to the Bing brand. It needs no additional reason to exist.

All this aside, the article is factually incorrect. It implies that localeze was contracted to provide Bing 411. In fact, localeze provides listings (according to the press release the article links), and are presumably one of many listing providers used. Microsoft/Tellme provide the actual Bing 411 service. I don't know for sure, but Tellme's (now Microsoft's) 1-800-555-TELL number almost definitely predates GOOG-411.

Re: "The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.

#12

Post by InclinedPlane »

tomerico wrote: post #4

While I cannot speculate on Microsoft purpose of a 411 service, I think it is pretty obvious why google dumped theirs - they now have access to an enormous source of human speech through google voice.

More so, it's not a very good business to be in. The same functionality at a much, much higher profit margin is in smart phones, and that's where you want to put your effort because it has such a higher rate of return.

Re: "The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.

#13

Post by InclinedPlane »

mxavier wrote: post #2

I'll play devil's advocate here. Are we sure Microsoft is not doing the same data mining on Bing411 as Google did on Goog411, and haven't dumped it because it is either a valuable service in their eyes or they are not done gleaning what google gleaned from their head start? I somehow doubt this is the case but I'm not so sure we can assume that it is not.

Microsoft doesn't play the same sort of long game that google does. Microsoft plays a traditional long game: market penetration, brand loyalty, development stack, "synergy" (real or imagined), etc. Google plays a much more subtle game. They'll do something like GOOG411 just to get better voice recognition algorithms. They'll also do things like develop a state of the art web browser just to jostle the browser development community out of its laziness and propel web standards and browser performance forward. That sort of thing is just not in Microsoft's DNA to do or even conceive of doing.

Re: "The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.

#14

Post by brudgers »

tomerico wrote: post #4

While I cannot speculate on Microsoft purpose of a 411 service, I think it is pretty obvious why google dumped theirs - they now have access to an enormous source of human speech through google voice.

That's what I was thinking. But it also implies that Google could drop Voice, or Gmail, or Maps, if something better comes along.

Re: "The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.

#15

Post by spinchange »

It still seems really odd to me that Google 86'd all explicit phone number directory -related stuff. The "phonebook:" operator is no more either. Yes, I know traditional web search and Maps are pretty good most of the time, but I come across many cases where they are not. Especially when it's a residential phone number (that is otherwise publicly listed) or a less web savvy local business.

Phone directories may, in fact, be very antiquated but they're still a thing, the data is there and often useful. Why not index it? Why not let me expressly look-up a phone number anymore?

Re: "The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.

#16

Post by indygreg2 »

I was working at Microsoft/Tellme at the time Bing411 was launched and would like to state a few facts:

- When launched, Bing411 was essentially a re-branding of Tellme's 1-800-555-TELL service.

- 1-800-555-TELL has been running since 2000 or something like that. I attended the 10th anniversary party, which I believe was in 2010.

- Microsoft didn't need to launch a Microsoft-branded 411 to collect utterances, for they had acquired Tellme and had many utterances coming in under their umbrella of services

- Tellme's bread and butter was speech recognition on the telephone and they are still in that space today, so Bing411, 1-800-555-TELL are still relevant for them.

I can also say that a lot of the speculation in the article about Microsoft's "reaction" is just wrong. But, I won't go into specifics because they aren't relevant.

I enjoyed the author's original point about making sure you are playing the same game. Unfortunately, the example used is factually inaccurate.

Re: "The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.

#17

Post by tobtoh »

bimbly wrote: post #6

Interesting read. But the best part for me was learning about a new free 411 service. At least once a week, I start to call Goog411 before sadly remembering the service was discontinued.

Is it really an interesting read? (this isn't a criticism of bimbly, more at poor quality blog posts in general (a particular bee in my bonnet at the moment))

The blog post basically consisted of a made up example to make a point that the blog author felt was valid. Now I happen to agree with the basic point the author was trying to make, but I think it's a reflection on the really poor quality of so many blog posts where people have some idea they want to pitch as insightful and then they fail to do any actual research and/or wrap it in a made up story. The 'parable' is pretty worthless when people like Indygreg above state that the motivations that the author guessed at was completely wrong.

Re: "The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.

#18

Post by e40 »

anorwell wrote: post #11

The tone of this article bothers me. There are some smart people working at Microsoft. The level of discussion is higher than "Hey, google made a thing, we need the same thing." Like the article points out, Microsoft has no shortage of utterances due to their acquisition of Tellme. Why, then, do they need to mine utterances with Bing 411? (Assuming they don't--I'm sure they do.) Bing 411 is a genuinely useful service…

> Why, then, do they need to mine utterances with Bing 411?

I think the point of the article is that they don't need to mine utterences with Bing 411, and that they merely did the service to compete with Google, without knowing why Google made the service in the first place.

Re: "The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.

#19

Post by headShrinker »

anorwell wrote: post #11

The tone of this article bothers me. There are some smart people working at Microsoft. The level of discussion is higher than "Hey, google made a thing, we need the same thing." Like the article points out, Microsoft has no shortage of utterances due to their acquisition of Tellme. Why, then, do they need to mine utterances with Bing 411? (Assuming they don't--I'm sure they do.) Bing 411 is a genuinely useful service…

I think Microsoft has very smart people but they don't have much control and the people at the top are more marketing and less genius and innovation. There is no shortage of examples of Microsoft doing just what you said, do it poorly and it flops. Microsoft's big successes where mostly do to masterful marketing, and less because the product was truly innovative. All that in mind, Photosynth still blows my mind.

Re: "The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.

#20

Post by nuclear_eclipse »

brudgers wrote: post #14
tomerico wrote: post #4

While I cannot speculate on Microsoft purpose of a 411 service, I think it is pretty obvious why google dumped theirs - they now have access to an enormous source of human speech through google voice.

That's what I was thinking. But it also implies that Google could drop Voice, or Gmail, or Maps, if something better comes along.

They certainly could. If you don't like that, don't rely on it, or make sure to export your data regularly. That's true of any free service, tbh.
Post reply on HN